NGSS Text Sets

Ted Palenski
February 04, 2018 21:25

This is a list of all Newsela Text Sets whose content aligns to Next Generation Science Standards. Starting from the bottom, you'll also find those Text Sets that contain MAX6 articles, which are geared towards elementary students and whose maximum level is Grade 6.

Students will practice reading with text structure in mind in order to greater comprehend and understand how science texts are organized. In ordinary language, people speak of “producing” or “using” energy. This refers to energy in its concentrated form, which is useful for generating electricity, moving or heating objects, and producing light. (NGSS Unit PS3.D)

Human populations are larger than they have ever been, but humans are better able to moderate the impact they have on Earth's systems. Through ongoing scientific work and computer simulations, new discoveries about Earth's systems and our effects on those systems are being made. (NGSS Unit ESS3.D)

This text set explores the Next Generation Science Standard subject of natural hazards. It contains articles on natural hazards and other geologic events that have shaped human history. Some hazards have drastically reduced populations and caused migrations. (NGSS Unit ESS3.B)

The abundance of natural resources has guided the development of the world's societies. Humans rely on natural resources but many are limited. Resources are unevenly distributed due to past geologic processes. (NGSS Unit ESS3.A)

To sustain human populations, people have a responsibility to manage biodiversity and natural resources. This text set focuses on scientists' attempts to fight climate change and help ecosystems, and preserve precious resources. (NGSS Unit ESS3.C)

Water's abundance and its unique characteristics make it a key player in Earth's dynamics. Water's properties include the ability to absorb, store and release a lot of energy, transmit light, and dissolve and transport materials. (NGSS Unit ESS2.C)

A core idea of engineering design, defining and delimiting, involves stating the problem to be solved as clearly as possible in terms of criteria for success, and constraints or limits. (NGSS Unit ETS1.A)

The creative process of developing a new design to solve a problem is a central element of engineering. This process may begin with an open-ended phase during which new ideas are generated both by individuals and by group processes such as brainstorming. (NGSS Unit ETS1.B)

The third step in the core idea of engineering design, optimization, involves a process in which solutions are systematically tested and refined, and the final design is improved by trading off less important features for those that are more important. (NGSS Unit ETS1.C)

Information from specialized sense receptors and memory helps to guide actions in animals. Sense receptors take in information, which travels to the brain where it is processed to yield behavior and memories. (NGSS Unit LS1.D)

Genes control the production of proteins, and thus an organism's traits. Changes in proteins (mutations) may change traits. These stories include DNA and genetics research and scientists attempting to solve the mysteries of long-extinct animals using their DNA. (NGSS Unit LS3.A)

Organisms are interdependent: some compete for resources and others develop mutually beneficial relationships. This text set contains articles that provide examples of both of these things. (NGSS Unit LS2.A)

Natural selection occurs when there is variation in genetic information that results in differences in individuals. These articles contain examples of how variations can help or hurt a species, which will then either survive or die off. (NGSS Unit LS4.B)

Multicellular organisms are made up of systems, which are formed of tissues and organs that have specific functions. Organisms are made up of cells, the smallest units of living things. Organisms reproduce and transfer their genes to offspring. (NGSS Unit LS1.A)

In sexual reproduction, each parent contributes one of an offspring's pair of genes, which leads to variation. These text sets contain stories about variations both useful and harmful that can affect an animal's survival. (NGSS Unit LS3.B)

The total change of energy in any system is always equal to the total energy transferred into or out of the system. This is called conservation of energy. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be transported from one place to another and transferred between systems. (NGSS Unit PS3.B)

By understanding waves and the interactions of electromagnetic radiation (such as radio, microwaves, light) with matter, information can be stored and sent across long distances, and nature can be investigated on many scales. Some of them far beyond direct human perception. (NGSS Unit PS4.B)

How can one predict an object’s continued motion, changes in motion, or stability? Interactions of one object with another can be explained and predicted using the concept of forces, which can cause a change in motion of one or both of the interacting objects. (NGSS Unit PS2)

Waves have been used to design instruments that greatly extend the range of phenomena that can be investigated by science using, for example, telescopes and microscopes. When waves are applied to communications systems in digitized form, information can be sent over long distances. (NGSS Unit PS4.C)

While too small to be seen with visible light, atoms have substructures of their own. They have a small central region or nucleus—containing protons and neutrons—surrounded by a larger region containing electrons. (NGSS Unit PS1.A )

Some events happen very quickly, while others occur very slowly over a time period much longer than one can observe. Wind and water can change the shape of the land. Maps show where things are located. Water is found in the oceans, rivers, lakes and ponds; water exists as solid ice and liquid form.

Local, regional, and global patterns of rock formations reveal changes over time due to Earth’s forces, such as earthquakes. The presence and location of certain fossil types indicate the order in which rock layers were formed. Rainfall helps to shape the land and affects the types of living things found in a region. Water, ice wind, living organisms, and gravity break rocks, soil, and sediments into smaller particles and move them around.</p> <p>The locations of mountain ranges, deep ocean trenches, ocean floor structures, earthquakes, and volcanoes, occur in patterns. Most earthquakes and volcanoes occur in bands that are often along the boundaries between continents and oceans. Maps can help locate the different land and water features areas of Earth.</p>

The faster a given object is moving, the more energy it possesses. Energy can be moved from place to place by moving objects or though sound, light, or electrical currents. Energy is present whenever there are moving objects, sound, light, or heat. Light transfers energy from place to place.

Plants depend on water and light to grow, and on animals for pollination or to move their seeds around; There are many different kinds of living things in any area, and they exist in different places on land and in water.

When the environment changes in ways that affect a place’s physical characteristics, temperature, or availability of resources, some organisms survive and reproduce; some move to new locations; some move into the transformed environment; and yet others die. Being part of a group helps animals obtain food, defend themselves, and cope with changes. Some kinds of plants and animals that once lived on Earth are no longer found anywhere. Fossils provide evidence about the types of organisms that lived long ago and also about the nature of their environments.

Reproduction is essential to the continued existence of every kind of organism. Plants and animals have unique and diverse life cycles. Many characteristics of organisms are inherited from their parents, while other characteristics result from individuals’ interactions with the environment. These can range from diet to learning. Different organisms vary in how they look and function because they have different inherited information. The environment also affects the traits that an organism develops.

The energy released from food was once energy from the sun that was captured by plants in chemical process that forms plant matter. Food provides animals with the materials they need for body repair and growth and the energy they need to maintain body warmth and for motion. Plants acquire their material for growth chiefly from air and water.

The gravitational force of Earth acting on an object near Earth’s surface pulls that object toward the planet’s center. The sun is a star that appears larger and brighter than other stars because it is closer. Stars range greatly in their distance from Earth. The orbits of Earth around the sun and of the moon around the Earth, together with the rotation of Earth about an axis between its north and south poles, cause observable patterns.

Matter of any type can be subdivided into particles that are too small to see, but even then the matter still exists and can be detected by other means. The amount of matter is conserved when it changes form, even in transitions in which it seems to vanish. Measurements of a variety of properties can be used to identify materials.

Different kinds of matter exist, and many of them can be either solid or liquid depending on temperature. Different properties are suited to different purposes; for example, we use steel to make buildings. Heating and cooling a substance may cause changes that can be observed. Sometimes these changes are reversible, but other times, they are not.

Waves, which are regular patterns of motion, can be made in water by disturbing the surface. When waves more across the surface of deep water, the water goes up and down in place. Waves of the same type can differ in amplitude and wavelength.

Scientists record patterns of the weather across different times and areas so that they can make predictions about what kind of weather might happen next. Climate describes a range of area’s typical weather conditions. It also describes the extent to which those conditions vary over years. A variety of natural hazards result from natural processes. Humans can’t eliminate natural hazards, but we can take steps to reduce their impacts.